What happened to your dark brown avatar, Em? with a ... was a roman soldier dude?

My last avatar was from an art exhibition called The Brother's Architect. It's really cool and the subject is the world has ended and this guy, the "Architect's" brother, must re-create earth after its environmental meltdown, so he bottles things like clouds and rain, or sews the earth's ground back together, and a whole lot of other cool stuff. I just wasn't sure which peice would make the best avatar, but here is the exhibit:

He combines photography with paintings to make the "photographs", they're really super cool in person!

And then, I dunno, I just decided I wanted something that popped more, so right now it's Roy Liechtenstein's most famous Pop Art painting. :D

I love art. It's so awesome, I wish I had any sort of artist talent...

Who are you?: I may or may not exist, depending on your faith or lack there of

What/Why do you write?: Literature makes the world a better place. Writing captures pieces of humanity, the pieces that are the most important, and makes them even more beautiful.

Influences/Inspirations: In the movie You've Got Mail, Meg Ryan's character talks of how books people read as children affect them like no other reading in their whole life can. I completely agree, and so when I think of my main inspirations for writing, my mind goes back to my childhood. Music also inspires me, not only to write, but also to express myself in several other ways.

I didn't mind You've Got Mail, better than Sleepless in Seattle...and let's face it, we all want to own a cutesy little book store and be financially stable in New York City at least once in our lives!

Who are you? I'm a wage-slave. I work for a large company doing a very small job. It's frustrating and tiring and ... but it pays well, and my team mates are great. Yeah, I define myself by my job. It's sad, really.

Why do you write? I'd appreciate if this stays to members of this forum, but I'm mildly autistic. Autistics have a hard time with 'theory of mind'. Let me give you a classic example:

John was playing with his toy in class and the teacher confiscated it. John looked on as the teacher put it in the desk drawer. John was sent to the principal's office, and during that time the teacher moved it to the closet. At lunchtime, John sneaks into the classroom to recover his toy. Where does he look for it?

Neurotypicals will realize that John couldn't have known that the teacher moved the toy, so they will (rightly) say that John goes to the desk drawer. Autistics, lacking theory of mind, will say that John goes to the closet.

What does this have to do with writing? Well, writing is all about theory of mind, when it comes down to it. What does this character know? What about that one? What does the reader know? How to clearly convey what the author knows, by way of the characters, to the reader is the science of writing. How to do so without the reader knowing is the art.

What do you write? Modern fantasy. I'm not strong enough a writer to write without a crutch of invoking something beyond the ken of our common world. Autistics are also rather ... socially clueless and such, so nuanced dramas, like the Dostoyevsky meme from the previous page, are sheer hell for me.

Influlences and Inspirations: Life? Everything around me? I think I added this line to the FaceBook FictionPress Group's discussion topic, "You know you're a writer when..." "...something bad happens to you and you instantly try to see how to inflict it on one of your characters."

I love Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. The SyFy version was horrible in comparison. I am in awe of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. I worship Studio Ghibli's Nausicaa.

My friends used to like telling each other we were mildly autistic, it seemed to explain a lot about us. I don't suppose we'd be so casual about actually being mildly autistic, but there you go. Neurotypical sounds weird though. Cool.

pff, you're not strong enough a writer. check out that whole Kim scene in Foster's Gambit. uh huh, uh huh, you know it. if angelo wasn't an angel, then teh first chapter would be another example. come to think of it, so would teh second... ;)

"...something bad happens to you and you instantly try to see how to inflict it on one of your characters."

Thanks. I don't want to flog my work, so I'll leave the Kim and Angelo comments alone for here. I'm elated to see two of my favourite critters so lively and active on a forum.

I meant to say that my weakness is in social nuances and cues, both in real life and in my writing. I can write surface stuff. I can write strong emotions. I can write battles and combats and strategy and tactics. But a clever, catty girl plating the social dagger in her high-school rival's back? I'd have no idea. I have an idea of some of my strengths, but stories that delve into our psyche... they are not my forte.

But it's very un-subtle. "Oh, I miss Madison. I miss her so much." "This reminds me of her." "That reminds me of her." "Everyone I run into talks about her." "Would this dishonour her memory somehow?" It's all coarse.

It's like what I said about Dark Power vs. Foster's use - one is strong, but coarse and clumsy. The other is weak, subtle but precise. I cannot do the latter.